Friday, July 31, 2015

Generic Clinton.com

Yes, that was easy math. 0.1, the fraction of her sample email sampled that was properly classified X 33,000 emails, comes to more like 3,000, but close enough for government work. And that doesn't even consider the other 30,000 that her lawyers deemed personal and preemptively deleted.

Did they need to be warned? When a spot audit on a small sample of unsecured e-mail shows that 10% of it contained classified material without proper markings or handling, the presumed “spillage rate” applied to 33,000 e-mails will involve thousands of communications, not just hundreds. The warning reported by the Washington Times today went to the members of the House and Senate committees overseeing intelligence, and may understate the potential damage:

The U.S. intelligence community is bracing for the possibility that former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s private email account contains hundreds of revelations of classified information from spy agencies and is taking steps to contain any damage to national security, according to documents and interviews Thursday.
The top lawmakers on the House and Senate intelligence committee have been notified in recent days that the extent of classified information on Mrs. Clinton’s private email server was likely far more extensive than the four emails publicly acknowledged last week as containing some sensitive spy agency secrets.
A U.S. official directly familiar with the notification, who spoke only on the condition of anonymity, said the notification of possibly hundreds of additional emails with classified secrets came from the State Department Freedom of Information Act office to the Office of Inspector General for the Director of National Intelligence. …
“We were informed by State FOIA officials that there are potentially hundreds of classified emails within the 30,000 provided for former Secretary Clinton,” DNI Inspector General I. Charles McCullough III late last week wrote Sen. Richard Burr, North Carolina Republican; Sen. Dianne Feinstein, California Democrat; Rep. Devin Nunes, California Republican; and Rep. Adam B. Schiff, California Democrat.
“We note that none of the emails we reviewed had classification or dissemination markings but some included IC-derived classified information and should have been handled as classified, appropriately marked and transmitted via a secure server,” Mr. McCullough wrote the four lawmakers.

This clarifies a couple of points. The “markings” issue, as I surmised, relates to the failure of Hillary Clinton to properly mark the material within her communications, not whether the data was properly marked when she received it. It also emphasizes what the IG spokesperson said earlier this week — the material was classified at that time, not later as Hillary’s defenders and Hillary herself have tried to claim.

The Washington Times source also noted that the IG believes Hillary’s attorney has the entire collection of 33,000 e-mails that she gave the State Department on a thumb drive in his office.

As I've said before, the whole Hillary email scandal is not so much that the Chinese (or whoever) got a hold of a few hundred classified emails. although that's bad enough, but rather that they probably had access to all of her email, from which they could deduce much more.

The Obama administration slapped a secret designation Friday on a number of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s emails from her time as secretary of state, raising more questions about whether her controversial email arrangement led to classified information being left unsecured.

A new tranche of Clinton emails, released by the State Department under a court order to impose transparency on the Obama administration, contains dozens of documents with information redacted and labeled either “confidential” or “sensitive.”

The classifications generally appear to have been done on Thursday, a day ahead of the release, which means the information wasn’t necessarily classified at the time Mrs. Clinton was emailing about it — but has now been deemed too sensitive to put out in public.

Not too sensitive to hide from the Chinese, but wholly unsuitable for release to the American public.

Hansjorg Wyss — a foreign billionaire with intimate ties to the United States’ top Democrats — wants authorities to imprison an American woman for speaking publicly about allegations of sexual abuse at his hands.

The revelations — first reported by The Daily Caller News Foundation — threaten to alienate female voters, a key constituency of the Hillary Clinton campaign.

Wyss is a major donor to The Clinton Foundation, a director at The Center for American Progress, and once paid now-Clinton campaign Chairman John Podesta $87,000.

Jacqueline Long of Aspen, Colorado alleges that Wyss would demand sex, and then later shower her with expensive gifts and contributions to causes she, as a development officer, advised the foundation to support. . .

Yes, I know this doesn't directly tie to Clinton.com, but considering the past history of the Clintons with sexual abuse, you think they might be a little wary of such entanglements. Wyss sounds like a real sweety:

A woman who has known both Long and Wyss for many years and who requested anonymity because she fears retaliation by Wyss said the Swiss billionaire would often switch back and forth between harsh attacks, then offer gifts.

“This is the pattern of what he does,” she recalled. “He flourishes with one hand and then knocks down with the other. He likes to be in control. He doesn’t like it when he isn’t in control. And that’s when he lashes out.”

Yes, I know this doesn't directly tie to Clinton.com, but considering the past history of the Clintons with sexual abuse, you think they might be a little wary of such entanglements.

Hillary Clinton’s greatest strength, the candidate explained in an interview with the morning newsletter The Skimm, is her “passionate commitment to helping people.” The passion was on display in 2009, for example, when Clinton personally intervened to help Swiss bank UBS settle a lawsuit with the IRS and thus protect the identities of tens of thousands of Americans who may or may not be evading U.S. taxes through Swiss bank accounts.

Clinton was also asked about her greatest weakness. Here’s what she said:

Got that? Clinton’s biggest fault is her inability to deal with you idiots who can’t comprehend why Hillary Clinton should be president. You already rejected her once in 2008, and God help you if it happens again. You wouldn’t like her when she’s angry.